In 2010 Rob Ford ran for Mayor in Toronto. To much of the city, his campaign was laughable: full of embarrassing scandals, anti-immigrant sentiment and declarations of war on ‘elites’. But he won. Then came the drinking, the drugs, the police investigations. It was a dark crime drama that most of the world only caught a glimpse of. And even during the worst of it, much of the city loved him. Does that sound familiar? It should. His rise to power revealed how politics and media were changing. And his legacy lives on in governments around the world today.